[Javascript] Accessibility (discussion)

[tedd]

At 4:50 AM +0000 11/20/08, Troy III Ajnej wrote:

-snip- discussion re monitor size and aspect ratio

I wasn't going to wade into this "Accessibility" discussion because 
there's more than enough information on the net to answer any basic 
questions one might have.

But considering that "monitor size" is being discussed, I have to ask why?

A screen reader does not read the screen -- that's a misnomer. It 
reads the text that is delivered to the browser -- that's all. Screen 
size and aspect ratio has no meaning to screen readers.

The main problem (and not the only one)  javascript has with 
accessibility is that it changes the client-side visual content 
without triggering a refresh. If you want to see an example of this, 
get FireFox, load an AJAX page, and look at the difference between 
the "Source" and "Generated Source". There is a difference and that 
difference has not triggered the screen reader to produce new content 
to the user and therein lies the problem.

I think the pdf file that Scott posted is very good source for 
accessibility concerns.

http://diveintoaccessibility.org/

However, even some of those tips are under discussion in causing more 
difficulty than alternative methods, including no doing anything at 
all. So, some of this is up for discussion, but monitor size and 
aspect ratio is not much of a accessibility concern.

Now this does not mean that what is on a monitor doesn't matter 
because those with vision problems (other than blindness) need to be 
considered as well. But things like using javascript to change the 
size of the text is an overkill because that's more easily changed 
via a browser. Whereas keeping text/background contrast high and 
making the layout and images still make sense with different zoom 
levels IS important

Cheers,

tedd

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